


Help

by MoreHeartLessAttack



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Panic Attacks, Poor Ralph, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Ralph Dibny Needs A Hug, Season/Series 04 Spoilers, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 00:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15206492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoreHeartLessAttack/pseuds/MoreHeartLessAttack
Summary: Help, you learn, is not something you receive from anybody else, but something you give yourself by the shotglass-full on the floor of your pristine new bathroom, in an apartment that was meant to be a fresh start but might actually be the end.





	Help

**Author's Note:**

> I've been really fascinated by a writing form lately called prose-poetry, which is exactly what it sounds like; writing that looks like prose but reads like poetry. I promise, the run-on sentences in this story are all completely intentional, they are not grammatical failings.
> 
> And I just have to say, I am shocked and horrified that I am the first person (as far as I can see) to be posting a Ralph Dibny centric angst fic. My baby is being neglected in this fandom and I won't stand for it. It's not like there's no material in the show for Ralph angst. I can't really be the only one who thought it was a little too easy for Ralph to just pop back into his body all howdy-doody like nothing was ever wrong. He's got to be carrying some baggage from his month-long field trip into the mind of a psychopath. Thoughts?
> 
> But with all that being said, I leave this steaming heap of oddly-structured prose-poetry for your reading pleasure. Enjoy.

_"I think I need help._

_I'm drowning in myself._

 

_It's sinking in, I can't pretend_

_That I ain't been through hell._

 

_I think I need help."_

 

\- Papa Roach, _"_ Help"

 

* * *

 

 

Help, you learn, is not something you receive from anybody else, but something you give yourself by the shotglass-full on the floor of your pristine new bathroom, in an apartment that was meant to be a fresh start but might actually be the end. Help is not quantified by helpfulness but by the time wasted in offering it, and you are very good at helping yourself.

 

*********

 

Help is the table you cling to the edge of for dear life when you are actually, literally knocked off your feet by the illogical and overwhelming sensation that this is it, you must be dying, you are dying.

 

The panic claws its way up your throat, into your brain and behind your eyeballs where it pours out in the form of droplets, because where else is it supposed to go?

 

But of course this is all hypothetical, it’s about you and not him, Ralph Dibny does not cry over spilled milk and certainly not over panic attacks. Because he doesn’t have panic attacks and he doesn’t need help, because he’s fine.

 

*********

 

Help is what you are supposed to be to the innocents about to burn alive in their own homes but you fail, fail, fail like you always do, you are a failure.

 

Of course the Flash saves the day, everyone can always count on the Flash, except of course for you because the kind of help Barry gives is not the kind you would hypothetically need. You don’t need help though. Barry and the team fight real-life monsters and they can’t fight the monsters inside your own head, nobody else can, its up to you so you say thank you and goodbye and go home to sit on the floor and have many shots of help.

 

*********

 

Help is respiratory rates falling fast, your heart beating heavy and slow, your body fighting the candy churning in your stomach and absorbing into your bloodstream. Help is the crinkled piece of notebook paper on the table by the front door, full of lots of eraser marks but only a few words, because it will, you hope, help them understand that at the end of the day this was the only way to help yourself, and those pills looked just like candy, didn’t they?

 

*********

 

Help is what he shouts for when he finds you. You hear him like you are underwater, and it’s making you so _angry_ , why can’t he understand that you _don’t want his help_ , why can’t he just let you go?

 

There is a hand on your chest, another on your forehead, a teardrop lands on your cheek, your eyelids are too heavy to open but that’s okay because you don’t want them to. You try to lull yourself back into that place of blissful sleep. You will your body to die, it is not cooperating. Footsteps are down the hall, into the bathroom where you’ve spent so many nights helping yourself right up to this final act of service.

 

A female voice, shaky but sure and calm, spits medical jargon you only recognize because you used to watch House, M.D. The man (and of course you know who the man is but you won’t call him by name because you’re still angry) is not nearly as calm. He talks to you and his voice is thick with regret.

 

 _We’re gonna help you, man._ Hand shifting to your forearm, grounding you. _We’re here, we’re gonna help you._

 

Please don’t, please don’t (but they can’t hear you.)

 

And of course please remember that this is a hypothetical, this is about you not him, because Ralph Dibny is just fine he doesn’t need help he’s fine thank you very much.

 

*********

 

The Thinker was never much help. You spent weeks trapped in his expanse of a mindscape, you saw the sadism and the pain and the horror and unfortunately you had to feel it, too, and you might panic every now and then and swallow some pills on occasion but you are not traumatized. You are a hero, you stop bad things like this from happening, they aren’t supposed to happen to you.

 

*********

 

Help. Help. Machines beep lights blink voices whisper and glass clinks. Clink. Clink.

 

Do you need help?

 

*********

 

Help is what they think they are giving you when they pump the pills out of your stomach, hold your hand and watch you sleep like freaks, and tell you everything is fine when you wake up oblivious-empty-confused-whathappened?-scared.

 

In the morning you are more aware even if you wish you weren’t. Machines still beep lights still blink, blink, and Caitlin lays a small, gentle hand over yours when you angrily try to pull her cords and drips and chaos out of your buzzing veins.

 

_Do you remember what happened?_

 

Of course you remember, what kind of question is that, how could you ever forget the panic, the pain, the misery, forget _him?_ (He was pain and death and evil and you worry sometimes that a piece of him was left behind when you took the body back over because you feel pretty crazy and you never were before.)

 

_What do you mean crazy?_

 

Crazy like your heart pounds and you can’t breathe and you’re dying, even when you’re not dying, and all you can think about is running, running, running through that forest, you never got away, you were never meant to get away, it was his idea of a game.

 

Machines beep lights blink, bones snap and minds crack, oh God he is here, coming for you, you are going to die you are going to die you are going to

 

sleep. She put something in your IV. She looks sad, you didn’t mean to make her sad, you just wanted to help her understand. Understand that

 

that it hurts and that

 

that you need help and that

 

that you want her help. You need help, please help.

 

 _I will, Ralph. I’ll help you._ She looks with set eyes and sincere eyelashes at something behind you. _We’ll help you._

 

Good. You really do need help.

 

*********

 

Help is what you need when the drugs wear off, but Caitlin is a good doctor and she says she would not be a very good doctor if she let you take shots on the bathroom floor and no straight out of the bottle is not better. You’re inclined to agree but that doesn’t mean you have to like it.

 

Barry talks to you. For a long time, and Caitlin leaves the room to help Cisco with something, and wasn’t it Barry’s hand on your chest and teardrop on your cheek?

 

_You scared the shit out of me._

 

Oh.

 

_I thought I was losing you again._

 

Oh.

 

_Why didn’t you tell us? We’re your family, man. We could have helped._

 

Oh. Oh. Okay well you just didn’t think you needed help, you were overreacting after all weren’t you, you just wanted to stop panicking, hurting, thinking, breathing and you thought it would help.

 

You were wrong. Wrong about everything. You see that now.

 

*********

 

Help is Caitlin teaching you breathing exercises and letting you wake her up with a ringing phone at 3:00 A.M. because you forgot every one of them the second you started panicking.

 

Cisco is help when he marathons Harry Potter with you because all you want to do is drown yourself in a bottle.

 

Barry helps when he reminds you that you did a good job out there today, you are a good hero, a good man, you have a family you are not alone we will always help.

 

Help is reminding yourself that this is not the Thinker’s mind, body, soul, it is yours and nobody will ever take it from you again.

 

And don’t let Ralph Dibny convince you that this is about you, or that it's hypothetical, or anything else because this is his life, his story, these are his demons, and he is learning to be okay with that.


End file.
